After a crazy 7-day shoot in northern Maine, Lucas McNelly’s film, “Up Country” is in on hard drives. This was genuinely one of the most fun film sets that I have ever been a part of (yes, it ranks up there with the unforgettable experience shooting Hatchet). Big thanks to an amazing cast and crew. Surprisingly enough, none of us had ever worked together before (with the exception of the director, Lucas McNelly, and his sound mixer, Dave Young). Perhaps it was the fact that it was such a small group of people gathered for the love of filmmaking. Perhaps it was the fact that almost all of us slept in one large room (more on this later). Perhaps we got really lucky: that the weather didn’t get too nasty, that egos were kept in check, and that everyone wanted to have a great time. I’m going with the lucky bit.
The weather was not what we expected. The heat wave that barreled through the region the week before shooting began was a distant memory as we actually battled some cold weather. Thankfully it didn’t dip below 50F degrees (save for a few of the nights), or we would’ve had some serious battery issues. I also would have had wardrobe issues (because I only brought a limited amount of cold gear). Our 7D package came with 4 batts and the Marshall LCD70P-HDMI monitor only had 3 (and one of them was those crappy Lenmar generic HVX/DVX bricks). The biggest issue was only having one charger for those monitor bricks. If we didn’t place our dead monitor battery on the charger right after dying, then we ran the risk of not having enough power the following day! One thing you must remember is that we were shooting in the woods of Maine, therefore inverters became our best friends as we used our production vehicles as generators.
As for the egos: our actors were troopers in the sense that they didn’t complain once about the conditions or physical challenges of running through the woods and battling cold weather in t-shirts, but they also humped gear and held bounce cards. It truly felt like we formed a little commune/collective with a singular goal: bring the script to life. It’s hard not to get caught up in the politics and heirarchy that are inherent–and necessary on big shows–in filmmaking, but every once in a while it’s great to step back and be on an intimate set where everyone is contributing to the creative process.
I’m going to assume that the peculiar details of this film served as a major filter for crew. It was made clear from the beginning that: the accommodations would be cramped, the food wouldn’t be catered, sleep would be limited, departments would be understaffed (or nonexistent – like my zero man grip and electric team), and equipment would be sparse. Challenges are exciting, after all.
For those curious, we used the Canon 7D DSLR for production (generously donated by Sean Hackett along with the handheld rig/monitor). Most of the film was shot on the 24-105 4L IS. A decent amount was also shot on the 17-55 2.8 IS and my personal 50mm 1.4 came in VERY handy when we were chasing the light at the start and end of the day. Because much of the film took place under a strong tree canopy I spent a lot of time with an ISO near 500 and my lenses pretty wide open. There were good stretches where I could stop down and use the ISO at 100, but those were few and far between. Considering I headed into the woods with very little equipment (a 4×4 bounce, 2×4 bounce, and 2 pizza boxes were my best friends) we were completely at the mercy of clouds and that giant HMI in the sky.
I had a very small grip package at my disposal (supplied by HighOutput in Portland, ME – with thanks to JP Agnon), but because our locations were so spread out and we had so few hands to wrangle gear we pretty much stuck to the lightweight/mobile bounce cards. Like I said before, we got very lucky with the weather. I had pretty steady cloud cover that wonderfully diffused the light. For those times that the sun came all the way through, we were able to be in dapple from the overhead trees. We were even lucky enough to have some heavy sun showers that will make for some very interesting b-roll.
We rented the two zoom lenses from Lensrentals.com. Seeing as though most of my work is in Los Angeles, the thought of having lenses shipped to me is hard to grasp when I’m surrounded by rental houses. When you are in Maine, however, things are different. It’s good to know that Canon glass is only a night away, that is if UPS had delivered things on time to the woods of New England. We had a minor delay on our second day of shooting when UPS failed to deliver our second lens before 10:30am as they had promised (and we paid extra to get). This should come as no surprise to me. I have awful luck with UPS. I had a major issue when I shipped my computer with them Freshman year of college and once again Sophomore year when my concert tickets failed to arrive in time for the TOOL concert in Chicago. We ended up falling pretty far behind schedule on the first two days, but were able to make it up after we became a well-oiled machine.
My handheld rig, the RedRock DSLR Cinema system, was almost identical to the one that I rent from Jay Ellison at Shadowcast Pictures on a regular basis. This configuration of the rig is particularly comfortable because of the 7D’s light weight. Unlike my previous encounters with it (like on “Act Naturally” and “‘Til My Skin Turns Blue”) where I had a heavy counterweight to offset the bigger cameras, I barely felt the need to take the 7D off of my shoulder. It was kind of the perfect weight: not so light that it felt flimsy and not so heavy that it was irritating. It was almost an extension of my body. There were a few occasions where I completely took the camera off the rig and used the camera’s LCD to be extra agile. I also took the camera and placed it on the ground while leaving the monitor on the rig, which allowed for some interesting low angle shots that would’ve been otherwise impossible (this is the most exciting aspect of the DSLR’s – they can almost double for specialty lenses by getting so low to the ground).
That’s about it for now. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the dailies and seeing what Lucas does with the footage. I think we got ourselves a good movie! Click here for my in-depth reactions/review of the 7D.
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